In Loco Parentis
by thermodynamic
Summary: Dallas doesn't know how to have a mother.


You shouldn't have come here, a stray puppy begging for scraps. But it's so beyond fucking cold, the way December gets even down south, that you don't really have a choice. You've spent enough nights sleeping on the street in New York to know that if you go that route, bruised and broken and vulnerable under a bridge, you'll be swallowing your pride _and_ your teeth by sunrise.

The door's unlocked, as always, and the hinges don't creak when you slide it open, so you fully expect to collapse on the couch and have that be the end of it. Maybe even slip out before anyone wakes up the next morning, passing through this house like a ghost, like a shadow. Except the light's on in the kitchen, and any hope of going unnoticed vanishes when Soda's mom swivels around and drops her coffee cup right on the floor.

"Hey, Mrs. C," you say, your voice rough from all the blood you've swallowed; she doesn't even move to clean up the spill that's spreading all over the scuffed wood. Your nose hurts like a son of a bitch, throbbing every time you move your head a fraction, and judging by the tiny gasp she lets out, the rest of your face is even worse off than you thought. "Can I stay here?"

"Don't you even think about goin' back outside," she breathes, and before you can bristle at her telling you what to do, she's steering you over to the couch and sitting you down on it. "Did you get jumped?" She tilts your head up in the dim light, examining the wreckage. "The hell were you out at two A.M. for in the first place, young man? Just _look_ at you."

If Al fucking Capone had a mama like this, he would've become a tax attorney or something, Christ. Your bitch social worker oughta take her to reform school and let her lecture about good grades and abstaining from drugs and alcohol. "My old man threw me out," you say, too bone-tired to protest, and sink deeper into the cushion. "I figured I'd better split while I still got my whole dental set, you dig?"

(Norm's memory for dates usually stops at learning the football schedule, except when it comes to his dead wife; he marks the day she died, not by lighting a candle and having a good fucking boo-hoo into his beer like normal widowers do, but by taking his belt off and declaring open season on your ass. You're not entirely sure how you made her shove a dope needle deep enough into her arm that an army of paramedics couldn't save her, when he was the one who got her hooked in the first place. It's amazing how little that matters to him after a couple hits of speed.)

She leaves long enough to go back into the kitchen and returns with a wet washcloth, then starts dabbing at your face. You want to tell her not to ruin her towels with your blood, but your voice catches in your throat, and you let her clean you up a little. "You got hit here hard," she says, gently prodding the spot where he clubbed you with a bottle. "You dizzy at all? Nauseous?"

"Don't fuss 'bout it. Been told I got a pretty thick skull."

She wraps her arms around you, and you should shove her away, but your limbs are still too frozen from cold to work right. "You've had it rough, ain't you, baby?" she says quietly, resting her chin on top of your head. "Real rough."

You don't know how to do this. Defrost. Hug back. Accept the love she throws around freely, not like it's a precious resource to be rationed out, but something she can spare even for you. You just sit there, engulfed in a warmth you haven't felt since you were old enough to tie your own shoes, and—

She ain't _your_ mother, even if she looks pretty close, and you ain't five years old anymore, imprinting onto your kindergarten teacher like a baby duckling. "I'm okay," you say as you wriggle out of the hold. "I didn't come here to get my nose wiped. Just needed a place to crash."

"You're as bad as Soda," she says with a little laugh. "Thinks he's so big now that he's in seventh grade, he can't even sit still for a hug. You boys are all the same, Lord."

Well, you're glad Soda ain't here right now, watching his mom drape an afghan around you, because you're sure you'd never live that down. By the time she's started smoothing down your messy hair, you see yourself through her eyes and realize that she ain't at all afraid of you— to her, you're small and skinny and fourteen, helpless. Not a no-good hood, or a dealer, or a thief, but just a _boy_ , like her own son. It dizzies you worse than any of Norm's blows.

"Dally, next time you get into a fight with your daddy, you come straight here," she says, putting her hands on your shoulders. "You hear me now? 'Cause I'm gonna be worried sick, thinking 'bout you wanderin' around all by your lonesome."

All you can do is nod. She'll figure out the truth about you soon enough, anyway. For now, you'll let this mirage hang in the air, undisturbed.


End file.
